Understanding the State of Broadband Connectivity: An Analysis of Speedtests and Emerging Technologies

The lack of access to broadband services and speeds that allows urban and rural populations to meet the minimum requirements of today’s society creates a lack of economic opportunities and digital inequality. In contrast, regions with adequate broadband infrastructure can attract investors and become the home of tech workers while boosting the local economy. To level the field and promote the expansion and improvement of broadband infrastructure, federal and state agencies in the U.S. provide funding through programs such as the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, and The Enabling Middle Mile Broadband Infrastructure Program among others. Here, counties assess their broadband infrastructure, identify the funding opportunity, and compete for that funding by submitting grant applications. In this research paper, we present the problems, challenges, and lessons learned during the process of assessment of the broadband infrastructure for Polk County, Florida, USA. In addition, connectivity technologies and physical layer options for broadband internet infrastructure were reviewed and we present our recommendation in terms of technology for the upgrading and expansion of the current network. In particular, we discuss the challenges in determining actual network coverage by contrasting official data of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with several crowd-sensing datasets such M-Lab (Measurement Lab), Ookla Open Datasets, and results from the Polk County community broadband survey. We discuss the advantages and limitations of using these publicly available datasets and open-source tools. Finally, we provide guidelines and best practices in terms of data analysis and visualization that may be used by city planners and researchers.